HC Deb 11 November 1926 vol 199 cc1315-7
Mr. WALLHEAD

I beg to move, in page 20, line 16, to leave out the words "annually, at such date," and to insert instead thereof the words not later than the thirty-first day of March in each year. This is a very small Amendment, and I would ask the Attorney-General if he cannot see his way to accept it. It lays it down clearly that the Board must present its account at a fixed time and period. It removes any uncertainty as to the Board deciding to put a sort of movable peace for the time when its accounts might be presented. I ask this for the purposes of clarity, and, I think, ultimately of assisting the working of the Board itself.

Mr. R. MORRISON

I beg to second the Amendment.

I think I raised this matter in the Committee stage upstairs. If you take an Act, let us say one passed under the auspices of the Ministry of Transport in 1924, the London Traffic Act, in that Act a Traffic Advisory Committee was set up to make a report to be laid before Parliament. That Act came into force at the end of 1024, and the first annual report has not yet been published or laid before Parliament. From the point of view of Members of this House who desire to take an active interest in these affairs, by the time the report of this Committee is published it will be largely out of date. By this Amendment we want to secure that the annual report which is to be published under Clause 23, shall be presented within a reasonable time and not 18 months or two years after, when the subject with which it deals will have become obsolete. We are not anxious to tie the Government definitely down to this particular date, but what we want is some definite date to be put in the Bill.

Mr. WALLHEAD

I would be quite prepared to specify it as a fixed date.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL

I quite sympathise with the object of the Amendment. The difficulty which those advising me feel in accepting it is that at present we do not know what will prove to be the most convenient date for the Board's financial year to come to an end. I do not think the offer to put in any other date meets that difficulty.

Mr. WALLHEAD

I would be prepared to alter the Amendment provided that it will give us a guarante that there will be a fixed date.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL

The difficulty is that I cannot tell the House, because I do not know, what will prove to be the most convenient date for the financial year of the Board. I do not know whether it will take three months or six months to prepare the accounts. If you are going to finish the accounts on 31st December, one date will suit, but if it happens that the annual accounts are ending on the 31st March or 30th June, they will have to be different dates. The Board must annually present a report of their proceedings in any case.

Mr. HARDIE

Would it not be wise just to add that whatever date the financial years end, there shall be a fixed time in which the accounts shall be presented?

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL

I should like to consider that suggestion, but not put it in just for the moment. I always hesitate to put in an Amendment without consulting those who may see difficulties that I should not be able to see. We have already got a provision that the Board must do it every year. In the case referred to by the hon. Member for North Tottenham (Mr. R. Morrison) the committee was obviously in breach of its statutory obligations, because it could not present a report annually if it had not presented one for 24 months. I will consider this matter, but I think it will have to be done in another place, as I am not prepared to pledge myself without having an opportunity of discussing it.

Mr. BALFOUR

I think the real difficulty is that in a year ending say the 31st December, the account has to be presented annually. Supposing it had to be presented in December, 1925, and the account was presented in January, 1927, you have nearly two complete years intervening. There is a substantial point in securing that the account is presented within a reasonable time after the closing of the account. I am not sure that a period of five or six months would be sufficient with all the complicated accounts you have to deal with, knowing the actual physical difficulties of assembling vast masses of documents that will be necessary in this case.

Mr. WALLHEAD

I am quite prepared that the account should be presented sonic time at which it could be discussed within a reasonable time of the period with which it deals. In view of what the Attorney-General has said, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.